AN- Forewarning! A little bit of blood and death is mentioned later on in the chapter, read at your own risk!

3rd Person POV

"How long will she be asleep?" Wanda asked as she and Dr. Miller stood by a medbay bed that was being occupied by an unconscious Ash who had little scratches and scrapes littering her arms and one large gash on the side of her face from Hallaway's clawed glove. She had Hops next to her tucked under her arm from when Sam had been helping her onto and off the Quinjet and, after seeing it with her stuff, thought it would be nice to leave with her for when she woke up.

"Even with her hyper regeneration, she'll still be out for at least a week or two." Dr. Miller answered solemnly.

"Why? I thought she healed quickly."

"The blade that was used on her had trace amounts of Platinum within the alloy it was made of. Her cellular structure didn't react well to the non-reactiveness and it severely weakened her abilities." Dr. Miller answered with a worried expression on her face before she turned to face the Zua plant she had been given by Zaruk, "It'll be all up to her and this plant juice to get her up and running again once she wakes."

"Thank you." Wanda thanked her and Dr. Miller nodded before leaving to go tend to her other patients.

Wanda stayed behind to watch over Ash as she slept before putting a hand to her forehead to use her Mind-stone-infused-abilities to reach out to her and feel that her mind was awake with thoughts racing about "not belonging" and considering going to be with her people and other emotions such as confusion, doubt, and fear rising and growing to the point that it overwhelmed Wanda to where she made a mental command to silence the thoughts enough for Ash to fully rest.

After feeling her subconsciousness at ease, Wanda sighed and left the room, unaware that the gash on Ash's face was starting to turn a mottled gray before it disappeared completely.

A Few Weeks Later

Ash had been released from the Medbay after a week of being awake in recovery and was caught up on what occurred in Lagos and she told the others about how Hallaway had attacked her and was still at large. After that, she was confined to HQ and was told to not leave for her own safety and to not join in training since the Platinum from her injury was still wreaking havoc with her powers making them appear out of nowhere while only fighting hand to hand and nearly setting Sam on fire once when they were practice sparring.

Now, Ash was just laying on her bed in her room looking at her hands with a blank expression on her face, wondering what she was supposed to do now, the whole world probably feared her even more now after Lagos more than just being an alien, her best friend was most likely still upset with her after their argument, and now her powers weren't working properly after her botched faceoff with Hallaway.

What's wrong with me...? She thought to herself and was surprised when she heard another voice in her head,

Same thing as me I suppose...

Sitting up, Ash got off her bed and went next door where Wanda was sitting on her bed watching the news, flipping between channels that all showed the same thing; the whole incident being her and Wanda's fault,

"-How are we expected to place our sense of national security in the hands of an extraterrestrial such as the Ion Phoenix and her fellow extraterrestrials who have no proof of proper residence papers or even green cards-"

In the middle of the reporter's rant, Ash went to sit next to Wanda as we both watched the news she switched to,

"-what legal authority does an enhanced individual like Wanda Maximoff have to operate in Nigeria-"

Right before the tv was shut off and Ash turned to see Steve putting the remote down before standing with his arms crossed as he leaned against the doorframe.

"It's my fault..." Wanda spoke aloud with a hint of regret in her voice.

"Mine too..." Ash voiced in.

"That's not true." Steve denied before she argued,

"In case you didn't hear, they were being pretty specific."

"I should've clocked that bomb vest long before you had to deal with it and you just so happened to get caught in the crossfire." Steve looked to Wanda then Ash as he spoke.

"I should've been able to sense Wanda trying to get it away and helped her or absorb the firepower from it as it detonated or something... instead I got caught off guard by some a-hole who said I didn't belong on this planet..."

"Hey..." Steve lightly chided her while giving her a raised eyebrow.

"Sorry..." She apologized with a guilty look on her face.

"Yeah well... you're not the only one who got a blast from the past."

Ash tilted her head in question and he explained while going to sit on the bed sandwiching Ash between him and Wanda.

"Rumlow said 'Bucky' and... all of a sudden I was a 16-year-old kid again, in Brooklyn... And people died... It's on me..."

"It's on all of us..." Wanda spoke softly as she put a hand on Ash's and Steve continued to say,

"This job... we try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn't mean everybody. But if we can't find a way to live with that, next time... maybe nobody gets saved..."

There was a brief moment of silence before, out of nowhere, Vision phases through the wall, startling the three of them before Wanda lightly scolds him,

"Vis! We talked about this."

"Yes, but the door was open so I assumed that..."

He tried to defend himself while pointing to the door but trailed off before saying,

"Captain Rogers wished to know when Mr. Stark was arriving."

"Thank you. We'll be right down." Steve nodded gratefully.

"I'll... use the door." Vision pointed to the door and started walking out before he remembered, "Oh, and apparently, he's brought a guest."

"We know who it is?"

"The Secretary of State."

Ash's blood froze when she remembered what Bruce told her about the Secretary of State, Thaddeus Ross. He was a ruthless and goal-oriented man who believed that this country would only become better protected with the advancement of unconventional weaponry and was responsible for Bruce being a fugitive on the run after the gamma experiment with the super-soldier serum went wrong and created the Hulk. Ash didn't know if she could face the man who caused so much grief for her adoptive father until she felt a reassuring aura surround her and heard Wanda's voice in her head,

Don't worry, we'll all be there the whole time...

Having forgotten their hands were still touching, Ash gave Wanda a grateful look before they and Steve stood up to follow Vision out to the meeting room.

However, they were stopped when Dr. Miller nearly bumped into them while looking at her clipboard with a worried expression as she informed them,

"I'm so sorry to hold you all but I need to give Ash a quick examination."

Ash's eyes widened at the urgent tone of Dr. Miller's voice she rarely used unless something serious was happening and Vision seemed to catch onto her shock when he told Dr. Miller,

"We would be happy to accompany her t-"

"No." Ash sharply cut him off before recomposing herself and saying more gently, "No, it's OK, I'll catch up with you all before the meeting starts."

They all nodded or quietly voiced their agreement before Ash followed Dr. Miller to the Medbay where she was immediately led over to her least favorite examination; the MRI scan.

"Alright you know the drill."

"Yes..." Ash sulked as she took off her radiation tags, pendent, and tracker bracelet before leaving them in the tray outside of the MRI room to go lay down on the bed.

"Don't worry, the newest MRI model Stark got for this compound will give us the results almost instantaneously and scans much faster."

"Good old Tony..." Ash smiled as she thought about how long it's been since she's seen him, what with him leaving the team to take care of business and her leaving so she could try to find Bruce.

"Alright let's see what's going on in that beautiful mind of yours."

Short Time Skip

"Done!" Dr. Miller announced through the mini intercom speaker and Ash lifted herself up from the bed and got her belongings back from the tray before going over to the computer that was loading the results from the MRI scan.

The results looked creepy to say the least: it was like all the tissue in the brain had been streaked with a black paintbrush before it was smeared over the rest of the brain and the muscles over the rest of her body looked pretty much the same with the exception of where Ash's core resided and there it looked like it was being caged by the black tendrils of whatever the stuff in the brain and muscles was.

"I was afraid of this..."

"Is all that... stuff the Platinum that was in Hallaway's blade?"

"Yes and no."

"I don't understand."

"There is still some residual Platinum in your system from that blade, but that's not what this is." Dr. Miller pointed to the inky matter in the scans before continuing, "This is another compound that doesn't react well with your body's natural chemistry and is what's been messing with your powers."

"What should I do to try to expel it?"

"At best, you should lay off using your powers for a while just to direct all your body's energy to get rid of this within the next few days."

"At worst?"

"This will continue to spread and eat away at your body until it exhausts itself trying to get rid of it and shuts down completely." Dr. Miller answered bluntly and Ash nodded while sucking her lips in with a mildly concerned expression on her face as she told her,

"Which I would like to avoid if possible."

"Don't worry, we won't let it come to that." Dr. Miller put a hand on Ash's shoulder in a comforting manner which Ash returned with a grateful smile before saying,

"I should probably get to the meeting"

"Yeah and hey, be careful with Ross, he's not someone you want to be on the bad side of."

"You know him?"

"Not really know him more like know of him. I had a coworker who worked for him and from what he told me he was a real a-hole."

"That's the same word I used for Hallaway."

"Great minds think alike."

Ash chuckled at that before exiting the medbay waving goodbye to Dr. Miller as she hurried to the meeting room right as Ross was in the middle of his speech,

"-I found something that 40 years in the Army had never taught me: Perspective."

He stopped right as he noticed Ash standing by the doors with her face slightly flushed at the sudden attention on her.

"I'm so sorry..." Ash quickly and quietly made her way over to her seat next to Wanda as Ross told her,

"Nice of you to finally join us Ion Phoenix. We were afraid you'd miss the good stuff."

This made Ash suddenly feel very uncomfortable with the way he said that last sentence and her nervousness only worsened with what he asserted next,

"The world owes the Avengers an unpayable debt. You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives . . . but while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some . . . who would prefer the word 'vigilantes'."

"And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?" Nat interjected boldly.

"How about 'dangerous'? What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced, and... extraterrestrial..." He glanced in Ash's direction as he said that and she shrunk down in her seat averting her gaze before he continued, "-individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?"

At his command, the large screen behind him began to zoom in on the map at various locations,

"New York."

Footage began to play from the Battle of New York with a Leviathan crashing through the side of a skyscraper, terrified citizens fleeing while soldiers fired at the Chitauri soldiers, and above the Hulk crashed through windows sending rubble down on the person who had been filming the whole ordeal.

"Washington DC."

More footage of the Project Insight Helicarriers destroying each other began to play before one of them crashed into the Potomac River and sent a huge wave crashing down on the people unfortunate to be falling behind in the evacuation and, much to Ash's horrified surprise, choppy footage of her and Xay fighting each other at the edge of the river before he was called away, destroying everything that stood in his way of flight including a few antennae towers, a flag pole, and a small billboard.

"Sokovia."

Ash felt Wanda's hand on hers as frightened people were seen running out of the city as it lifted into the air causing an insurmountable amount of damage as buildings simply toppled over destroying everything in their path.

"Lagos."

The most recent incident was shown as the building aflame was being crowded by firefighters, paramedics, and victims either trying to get in or out with some of the injured people bearing burned skin that wasn't caused by mere flames and coughing into bloodied rags. Ash heard Wanda's breath hitch for a second and sensed her guilty unsettlement as it matched her own and Steve must've picked up on it too when he told Ross,

"Okay. That's enough."

Ross nodded to the person running the projections and they disappeared as Ross began to speak,

"For the past four years, you've operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That's an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution."

He was handed a thick book-like document that he then placed on the meeting table in front of Wanda as he started to explain what it was,

"The Sokovia Accords. Approved by 117 countries... it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary."

"The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place. I feel we've done that." Steve protested against what Ross was offering, but he became at a loss when Ross asked,

"Tell me, Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?"

Steve looked to Ash who just gave a silent shake of her head with a grave look on her face and Ross noticed this as he spoke again, with a touch more hostility in his voice,

"If I misplaced a couple of 30 megaton nukes... you can bet there'd be consequences. Which brings me to the next matter; letting an unregistered, fire-wielding, radioactive alien simply run amok across the globe for 8 months, inflicting her will wherever she goes and, as I've mentioned before, doesn't seem too unconcerned about what she leaves behind."

"With all due respect Mr. Secretary, I 'inflicted my will' when attempting to save the lives of citizens who live in places that are overlooked simply because it 'wouldn't be worth the effort' to help. It was my moral obligation to help those people." Ash stood up with an indignant expression on her face as she attempted to defend herself.

"'Moral obligation' hmm? Is that what Dana Calvin would've called it?" Ash's eyes widened and her posture stiffened when a picture of a young woman who looked to be in her early 20's with short blonde hair and hazel eyes was pulled up right next to a news bulletin that showed an image of a barn ablaze with the headline declaring Local Teen Dead Following Ion Phoenix Flameout.

"That wasn't entirely my fault..." Ash remained standing but her tone had lost most of its confidence as she provided a weak defense.

"Yes, I'm aware of that, but the fact remains that you and others of your kind are just roaming the planet with abilities that, when left unchecked, can do immeasurable damage and provokes the people enough to fear what you and are and what you can do."

Ash sat back down in her seat with a defeated look on her face before Ross continued with,

"But it doesn't have to be that way. Which is why there are several clauses in here to address the residency status of you and every other alien of your kind on this planet as well as provide you all protection and rights if you agree to cooperate with the United State's government as well as provide us information on your species. With that sort of official transparency backing you up, no one will have to fear you or your people ever again and you all could have the chance to be integrated into society. Compromise. Reassurance. That's how the world works. Believe me, this is the middle ground for everyone."

"So, there are contingencies." Rhodey stated with a slightly questioning tone.

'Three days from now, the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords. You will be required to come to give us your answer publicly." Ross announced, directing the last part of his statement to Ash before adding, "Talk it over."

"And if we come to a decision you don't like?" Nat asked with an amused attitude.

"Then you retire." Ross bluntly stated as he and his aide left, Ross giving Ash a look that just screamed 'we're not done here' that left her with an uneasy feeling.

Short Time Skip

Everyone was together in the dining room near the kitchen with Steve reading through the Accords and Rhodey and Sam arguing with each other, Rhodey in favor of the Accords while Sam wasn't so much,

"Secretary Ross has a Congressional Medal of Honor, which is one more than you have."

"So let's say we agree to this thing. How long is it gonna be before they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals? They're already doing it with Ash and her people." Sam argued motioning to said being as she looked up at them with her large eyes before the argument continued,

"A 117 countries want to sign this. 117, Sam, and you're just like, 'No, that's cool. We got it.'"

"How long are you going to play both sides?"

"I have an equation." Vision cut into their conversation.

"Oh, this will clear it up." Sam motioned to Vision with his arm.

"In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man, the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. And during the same period, the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate." Vision started to explain.

"Are you saying it's our fault?" Steve questioned.

"I'm saying there may be a causality. Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict... breeds catastrophe. Oversight... oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand."

"Boom." Rhodey spoke making Sam give him a look of disbelief.

"Tony. You are being uncharacteristically non-hyper-verbal." Nat spoke to said person as he lay on a couch with one hand over his face in exhaustion before removing it to give Nat a weak glare.

"It's because he's already made up his mind." Steve spoke up.

"Boy, you know me so well." Tony weakly snarked before getting up to say while rubbing his head, "Actually, I'm nursing an electromagnetic headache."

"That's what's going on, Cap. It's just pain. It's discomfort." Tony went to the kitchen to grab a mug before stopping at the sink and asking, "Who's putting coffee grounds in the disposal? Am I running a bed and breakfast for a biker gang?"

Everyone looked to Ash when she apologized,

"Sorry? The compost was full..."

"Course it was..." Tony snarked again as began to prepare himself some coffee, but not before putting down his phone to project an image of a smiling young man and pretending to notice it in mock surprise as he began to speak,

"Oh, that's Charles Spencer, by the way. He's a great kid. Computer engineering degree, 3.6 GPA. Had a floor-level gig at Intel planned for the fall. But first, he wanted to put a few miles on his soul, before he parked it behind a desk. See the world. Maybe be of service. Charlie didn't want to go to Vegas or Fort Lauderdale, which is what I would do. He didn't go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds fun. He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where, Sokovia."

Everyone started to look discomforted by this piece of information they had no idea about before as Tony continued while grabbing a pill to down with his coffee,

"He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. I mean, we won't know because we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass. And Ash that Dinah girl-

"Dana. Dana Calvin." Ash corrected him with a fierce edge to her voice that was new and surprising to everyone in the room.

"What was her story? Hmm? Enlighten us."

Ash looked down with her eyes closed in guilt before getting up to stand in the middle of the dining room to begin to tell the story, surprising everyone again when she placed her index and middle fingers against her temples and small streams of reddish-gold energy flowed out from her head to form a small cloud where they saw what she was describing as she spoke with her eyes still closed,

"I had been searching for any clue of Bruce in a small town in Nebraska ..."

Flashback in Ash's POV

"-when I came across a barn where inside I heard some kind of a struggle... between a Chrysinthean and a human soldier..."

I was walking past a barn on the outskirts of a town when I heard a loud *BANG* coming from inside and I quickly ran inside to see two individuals inside, one clad in dark-colored armor and the other a Chrysinthean girl from her bright blue hair and lilac skin fighting each other.

"Neither of them knew that there was a civilian with them in there filming the whole thing..."

Catching a glimpse of a light flash, I looked over to a pile of hay where a girl with short blonde hair and hazel colored eyes was hiding and snapping pictures of the whole confrontation between the Chrysinthean and the armored figure all while bursts of glowing blue energy and shots from the weapon the armored figure were being tossed left and right, nearly hitting the girl several times if she hadn't ducked out of the way.

"I tried to stop them before she got hurt..."

"STOP!" I yelled as I sent a wave of flames to hit the two fighting figures dead on to stop their fighting when I realized too late-

"But I didn't know there had been machinery within the barn..."

My power hit a farming machine and it exploded with a tremendous amount of power that it forced me out of the barn as it set the whole place ablaze.

"But when I went back in to find any survivors..."

I quickly got up and ran back inside the barn unaffected by the flames, finding the unconscious Chrysinthean girl in no time and getting her arm around my neck to help her up but when I looked up, I instantly wished I could unsee what I saw...

"I was too late for Dana..."

Half of her body had been crushed underneath a large plank of wood that had fallen from the second floor, her eyes were closed and had blood from a cut on her forehead dripping down over them and there was no sign of if she was even breathing while her phone lay near her still hand with the screen cracked.

"And there wasn't anything I could have done to save her..."

I carried the Chrysinthean girl out of the burning barn just before it collapsed in on itself and sent a wave of dust and embers out as I gently set the girl down as best as I could before I looked over to see the armored figure from before walking out from the fiery remains of the barn, with no sign of injuries on them as they simply brushed themself off and looked in my direction, looking as if they were about to make a move of attack before the sirens of local authorities were approaching our location and the figure merely pointed at me before he retreated into the darkness of the forest.

Back to the Present

Ash ended the memory projection and her arms dropped to her sides as she opened her pain-filled eyes to tell everyone,

"By the time I told my fellow Chrysinthean to head for the Haven in Oregon, the figure had been long gone and the local authorities blamed me for the whole thing after seeing the damage I had caused with the innocent bystander, who just so happened to be a popular conspiracy theorist against the idea of letting aliens stay on this planet, inside dead while I, an alien with know fire abilities, was standing outside the wreckage unharmed."

"Do you know who that person was who tried to kill you both?" Steve questioned with concern lacing his voice.

"I didn't find out until Lagos that that figure... had been Hallaway."

Everyone seemed to be more alert when they heard that as Ash continued to explain gravely,

"He's been hunting my people ever since Project Insight failed and, after I left, I tried for months after that to catch him, but he always managed to slip away. I tried, for weeks, to tell the local authorities wherever I went to help me catch him... but they never believed me... To them, I was the real threat..."

There was a moment of tense silence as everyone processed what their youngest team member, practically everyone's little sister had survived on her own before the moment was broken by Tony,

"And what if that hadn't been the case?"

Catching everyone's attention as he suggested,

"What if you had the help because they actually trusted you and your people wouldn't have to hide in some gloomy cave in sleepy Oregon, he would've been caught and what happened in Lagos might not have happened if you weren't feared and had the support you needed to stop all that from happening."

"Tony." Steve was about to protest when Tony continued to say,

"There's no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! She and her people need to be trusted. Whatever form that takes, I'm game. If we can't accept limitations, if we're boundary-less, we're no better than the bad guys and if Crimson Comet here needs to sign a couple of papers to keep herself and her people safe, who're we to say no."

"Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don't give up." Steve started to argue with Tony,

"Who said we're giving up?"

"We are if we're not taking responsibility for our actions. This document just shifts the blames."

"I'm sorry. Steve. That-that is dangerously arrogant. This is the United Nations we're talking about. It's not the World Security Council, it's not SHIELD, it's not HYDRA." Rhodey interjected.

"No, but it's run by people with agendas, and agendas change." Steve argued back before being cut off by Tony again,

"That's good. That's why I'm here. When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands, I shut it down and stopped manufacturing."

"Tony, you chose to do that. If any of us sign this, we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go? What if there is somewhere we need to go, and they don't let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own."

"If we don't do this now, it's gonna be done to us later. That's the fact. That won't be pretty."

"You're saying they'll come for me." Wanda spoke up from where she was sitting near Vision as he told her,

"We would protect you."

"Maybe Tony's right." Nat spoke up, surprising everyone with her statement, mentioned person included as she continued to explain her reasoning,

"If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer. If we take it off..."

"Aren't you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?" Sam questioned in confusion.

"I'm just... I'm reading the terrain. We have made... some very public mistakes. We need to win their trust back. All of us." Nat defended her reasoning, sending a look over to Ash at the last part of her sentence.

"Focus up. I'm sorry, did I just mishear you or did you agree with me?"

"Oh, I want to take it back now."

"No, no, no. You can't retract it. Thank you. Unprecedented. Okay, case closed. I win." Tony grinned at everyone victoriously as Steve's phone buzzed and, after reading the screen, he stated,

"I have to go."

Sharply getting up to leave the room with no room for questions or arguments. When he walked in front of Ash to drop the Accords on the table in front of her, she could've sworn she felt a wave of sorrow and grief coming from him right before he left the room.

"So what're you gonna do kid?" Ash turned her attention back to where the focus of everyone surprisingly was on her as she looked at the thick packet in front of her.

"Ever since I arrived on this planet and found out what I was, I feared that this day would come..." Ash informed everyone honestly as she kept her gaze on the packet in front of her.

"What day would that be?" Nat asked.

"The day where I'd have to choose between my old home and my new one..."

"Who says you have to choose just one?"

"These Accords make it seem as though in order to be accepted by the people of this world, we'd have to surrender everything that makes us 'alien'... I want to earn the trust of the people and I'm willing to make that sacrifice but how am I supposed to be expected to make that choice for all of my people?" Ash sighed before getting up, "I just need some time to think it over, good night everyone."

She gave a small wave to everyone before heading upstairs to her room where she plopped down onto her bed and held Hops in front of her asking him,

"What am I supposed to do? Everyone's counting on me to make the right choice but right for who?"

Dropping him to the side, she looked over to the nightstand where she kept photos of herself with all the other Avengers as well as one from when she and Xay had gone undercover at an amusement park to have a free day of fun before she had left on her nearly year-long journey to find Bruce.

My people or my new family...? Ash thought as her eyes started falling shut as the last thing she saw before fully falling asleep was her Ion Phoenix suit.

5225 Words

AN- Wow... I was not expecting this chapter to be this long, but hopefully it starts to make up for being so absent these last few months ^^; I'll try to have the next chapter up as soon as I can with class back in session and quite a few group and solo projects that I've been assigned this week alone :'(

Anyone else who was on the verge of crying/fangirl screaming while watching the season finale of WandaVision? I know I was ^^; PM me if you want to trade theories

Until the next chapter, Bye!